


Assembled Into Joint Narrative

by celli



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Immortal family, M/M, Muslim Character, Weddings, soft sweet murder husbands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:15:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25909480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celli/pseuds/celli
Summary: "A thousand years and you've never done this?" Nile asked. "Why now?"Joe looked over at where Andy stood next to Nicolò. Her dress, ruby red and caught behind her waist and neck with gold knots, couldn’t or perhaps didn’t intend to entirely hide either the knife at the small of her back or the scars on her shoulder and side. "You know why," he said.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 22
Kudos: 280





	Assembled Into Joint Narrative

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thestarsexist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestarsexist/gifts).



> Prompt from thestarsexist: "Joe/Nicky, desert wedding."
> 
> Thanks to siria, seascribble, and roga for beta and culture detail work, as well as tanndell for brainstorming and loki_lady and thedeadparrot for encouragement!
> 
> Title from [Whom You Love](https://poets.org/poem/whom-you-love) by Joseph O. Legaspi: (h/t azephirin)  
>  _At a longed-for distance remains sharply crystalline_  
>  _Fragments, but by day’s end assembled into joint narrative_

It was a small group on the cliff overlooking the Dead Sea as the sun rose over the country now known as Jordan. Joe stood back and took in the space around them automatically: easy sightlines for miles across the other cliffs. Copley was behind them on high alert.

(Even farther away, the occasional glint of sun on a scope, someone both watching and watching over them. Just this once, Joe would let it lie. For them, he would.)

"A thousand years and you've never done this?" Nile asked. "Why now?"

Joe looked over at where Andy stood next to Nicolò. Her dress, ruby red and caught behind her waist and neck with gold knots, couldn’t or perhaps didn’t intend to entirely hide either the knife at the small of her back or the scars on her shoulder and side. "You know why," he said.

“Joe--”

He shook his head.

Nile put a hand on his arm. He looked down at her. In a sort of solidarity with him, she was wearing a kaftan in black with gold embroidery that could have been patterned after his dress thobe. She, like Andy, was visibly armed. Joe, like Nicolò, was not, for the first time (willingly) in a long, long time.

“Some weddings, you know, they say _until death do us part_ ,” he said. “It’s been a long time since I really thought about what that meant.” Five hundred years, searching port towns and interrogating small-minded clergymen to find Quynh. Watching something in Andy’s eyes fade every day. 

“You’ve all been doing some thinking lately,” Nile said.

“It’s true. And I don’t have many conclusions, but I do have this one: I have things I want to say to Nicky. I have things I want to hear him say. And I want our world--” His gesture took in her, Andy, even Copley and that far off scope. “To witness them.”

“Joe,” Andy called. “It’s time.”

“Yes, boss,” he said. He took one more look along the cliffs and headed back to Nicolò and Andy, Nile at his side. “You know,” he told Nile, “at some point in a Muslim wedding you might see a wali, a guardian who negotiates the, hm.” He tried to translate “mahr” within context. “The bridal gift, I suppose?”

“Should I negotiate one for you, since Andy’s busy?” Nile asked. “How much do you want me to hit him up for?”

“Whatever Nicky thinks I need,” Joe said, watching Nicolò smile at Andy.

“Ha, he won’t be able to write a check big enough,” she said. 

Joe stopped and looked Nile in the eye. “Thank you. _Thank_ you.”

Nile hugged him unexpectedly, and Joe hugged her back hard. Then she moved to stand next to Nicolò, bumping shoulders with him affectionately. Nicolò grinned at her and then turned his gaze to Joe. Joe caught his breath.

Nicolò, of course, looked perfect. His suit was black and his tie was gold, but that wasn’t it; he had gotten a haircut the day before and shaved while Joe watched that morning, but that wasn’t it; his eyes were bright and his smile was only for Joe and that, that was it.

Joe reached out and took Nicolò’s hand in his without prompting. He realized that Andy was talking and tried to focus.

“...and when a Scythian wanted to marry, we would hang our quiver before our beloved’s wagon.” Andy waited a beat. “Did either of you remember your quivers?”

Joe grinned at her, and Nicolò laughed out loud.

“Well, you’ve been in love for literally a millennium, so I suppose you deserve this anyway,” Andy said lightly. Nicolò’s hand tightened on Joe’s.

“Yusuf ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn al-Kaysani. Nicolò di Genoa. You’ve come together here with your loved ones to marry each other. You two have loved so long and so well. I’ve watched you grow together and take care of each other and sing terrible songs to each other terribly and I’ve - envied you.”

Joe finally turned his head away from Nicky and looked at her.

“Neither of you are perfect, and neither is your love,” Andy said, her voice tight. “And yet you fight every day for each other. You amaze me, Joe, Nicky.”

“We love you, Andy,” Nicolò said.

“Oh, don’t,” Andy said and took a deep breath. “That was my part, now what do you have to say to each other? Joe?”

Joe carefully removed the silver ring from where he’d been keeping it safe on his pinky finger. He took Nicolò’s hand in his.

Nicolò shook his head. “You know I didn’t get you a ring,” he said.

“Just as I knew one would suit you,” Joe told him. He slid it carefully onto Nicolò’s finger. “There’s something you need to know about this ring,” he said, “and that is - it’s okay if you come home one day without it.”

Nile laughed. Nicolò quirked an eyebrow at him.

“You can lose it in the sea swimming to a rescue boat. You can leave it behind so it won’t identify you. You can have it cut off your finger by someone foolish enough to threaten you. You can even sell it for a ticket home to me.” Joe turned Nicolò’s hand and kissed his palm. “I will always, always give you another and we will always, always belong to each other.”

“Yusuf,” Nicolò murmured.

“A thousand and more years ago, we stood on this spot and swore to stop killing each other. I couldn’t have known, then, that when I stopped dying by your hand I would instead learn to live for you. I love you,” he said in English, in Nicolò’s first language, in his own. 

Somehow Nicolò was even closer to Joe, and he brought their joined hands to rest on his chest. “I remember standing here with you,” Nicolò said. “The seas were much closer to the cliff, weren’t they?” Joe nodded. “And we weren’t exactly wearing finery, just stained clothes and filthy armor. We were friendless then, except in our dreams, and we didn’t yet have a purpose for our lives and our deaths. But I knew that, if I could cling to you with all I had, those other things would come in time. And despite _someone’s_ constant doubts about the subject,” he said pointedly, winking at Joe when Joe failed to keep a straight face, “I was right, wasn’t I?”

“Can I kiss him now?” Joe asked Andy.

“No, shut up,” she told him.

“I consider myself the most fortunate of men,” Nicolò said. “I was born into a loving family; I have another one now. But you will always be the heart of this family for me, no matter how many lifetimes we live, and I will always cling to you with all I have. I love you.”

“ _Now_ may I kiss him?” Joe asked Andy.

“Yes, shut up, I declare you married already,” she said.

Joe ignored Nile’s choked laughter and kissed his Nicolò for a deliberately inappropriate amount of time, one hand on Nicolò’s neck and the other holding his hand so he could learn how the new ring felt on it. They needed to sign their marriage certificates from whatever country Copley had arranged, he knew, as well as the nikah contract, but they could worry about that later. Joe needed to teach the rest of them how a dabke worked, even if he had to break out the Internet to do it, because he’d wanted to dance one since The Ma’an Wedding Incident of 1882. He could worry about that later, as well. All he had to do now was kiss his Nicolò, his _husband_ , embrace the rest of his little family, and probably kiss Nicolò again. 

The sun had just fully risen. Andy was well and healthy. He and Nicolò, they didn’t have forever, and he knew that, but...they had today. They had time.

**Author's Note:**

> [An example of a Jordanian dabke](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpUCIyqyQQ0) (though probably not the exact kind they would have danced in the city of Ma'an in 1882).
> 
> [This is the location](http://cdn.exiteme.com/exitetogo/www.godeadsea.com/gallery/325EACE5-1A2A-9137-4E1B-44F36B7108B5.jpg) I had in mind, courtesy of [godeadsea.com](http://en.godeadsea.com/).
> 
> I had a cultural beta on this but am not Muslim myself, so if there are any errors, please let me know. My email is in my profile if you don't want to leave a comment. Thank you!


End file.
